Conjurers Cosmetics Lip Products

So as some people may remember I'm doing a home study course to learn to make my own makeup. It's taking me ages because, instead of just following the recipes included in the course, I'm trying to perfect my formulas and make loads of different colours of each product. Anyway I thought I'd share some of the lip products I've made so far for my imaginary makeup line Conjurers Cosmetics, some are successes, some are failures. What do you think?

Lip glosses:

This one is an opaque perwinkle blue with red sheen, The red is more noticable in real life. One of my favourites.

 

    

Lots more under the cut 
 

Darling Girl Lip Products Reviews and Swatcharama!

Today I have some swatches and reviews of Darling Girl Cosmetics Lip Products.

They make several different lip products including lip balms, primer and of course colour cosmetics.

Packaging is simple but attractive:

  

Holo Gloss in a click pen, Kiss You Off Colour Rich Lip Balm in a tube, Liquid Kiss Luxe sample in Strawberry Fields Forever in a clam shell, Holo Gloss in a pot.

Reviews and swatches under the cut :)

Illamasqua Theatre of the Nameless Collection

Yes, I'm stupidly late with this post once again. The collection has been out for quite some time now, but because Illamasqua is awesome with it's collections, the products are all still available and will be for a long time :) 

This collection was inspired by the dark and decadent nightlife of Berlin in the 1920s, the images really reminded me of expressionist cinema. The colours are vampy and rich, but with hints of sparkle and iridescence. While the collection of darker, vampier hues seems perfect for autumn/winter, as usual Illamasqua has not gone down a 'safe' route. The dark cerises, smoked purples, forresty greens and rusty reds are also joined by flashes of bright magenta, light peaches and greyed pinks. There's new textures too - shimmery blushes and rubberised nails. 

To be honest while I absolutely loved the collection imagery that came out before the products, I didn't imagine I'd end up wanting to buy much. To me while the pictures were absolutely breathtaking, I didn't imagine that too many exciting products were involved. For instance I adore this picture: 

But the only product really featured is a black liner (and whatever created the flawless skin)

But then when I actually saw the products, there were loads I wanted! 

And the lovely people at Illamasqua were kind enough to send me a few items, including two that I was absolutely craving, so that was a bit of good luck for me! 

The products came with a catalogue, featuring more gorgeous artwork.

And in the normal, sleek Illamasqua packaging. This is the one thing I would change about Illamasqua's collections, special packaging would be nice to distinguish them from the main line of products.

 

The three products I recieved were Sheer Lipgloss in Violate, Lipstick in Kontrol and Pure Pigment in Berber.

Firstly the product I was the most excited about, the Sheer Lipgloss in Violate. I won't do a proper review of the formula because it's the same as one's I've talked about extensively before here

 

However you can see from my picture that while this is called a 'sheer' gloss it really isn't very sheer (though you can make it look sheerer by applying it very sparingly). It's a fantastic colour. A sort of red-ish brown with tonnes of green shimmer. You can see the brown colour a lot here because of the angle of my lips, from straight on they look much more green.  I really love it, such a cool colour, I can honestly say I've never seen a metallic, forrest green lipgloss before and this is a wonderful one. However what I would say is that the  pigmentation is a little odd, it's not opaque like their Intense Lipglosses but it certainly isn't sheer. I think it would look better over a base, perhaps black. You can also apply a tiny bit of this over another colour to darken it and add a hint of the green sparkle. It's good over red! 

Next the other product I loved the look of, the lipstick in Kontrol.

 

This is an amazing and unique colour. It's a real, true purple (not an aubergine or plum just called a purple) but with a hint of grey which makes it look really sophisticated and special. Berry lips are usually big for winter and I think this is a more interesting alternative. I've had problems with Illamasqua's lipsticks before, a lot of the shades I've tried have been very dry or drying or just not that great. I don't know if they've made any changes to the formula or if it's just this shade but this is just a fantastic lipstick! It's super pigmented, opaque in a single stroke and has a matte finish, however it is not in the slightest bit drying. It's creamy and smooth and glides on like a dream. It's just an amazing lipstick, I don't have anything bad to say about it!

Finally I was sent Berber, a  pure pigment. 

 

Pure Pigments can be used all over, as eyeshadow, blush, highlighter or you can apply it wet to make an eyeliner. Berber is a great metallic red colour with gold and green sparkles. It's beautifully pigmented and the different colours of the glimmer really shine through. I've not used this as an eye shade yet but I have other Pure Pigments which I have and they make fine eyeshadows, they last ages and don't tend to crease or fade. If you apply this lightly it makes a fantastic blush! It doesn't say anywhere if this is safe for use on the lips, which is a shame, I imagine it would look beautiful dusted over a red lipstick.

All the products I tried are really wonderful, I'm so so impressed with the lipstick formula and I love the lipgloss. So I really love this new collection, I want basically everything else from it! If the items I recieved seem a bit too 'out-there' and strange there is a lot more in the collection which is more conventional, there are blushes in rosy magentas and peachy nudes and pure pigments in black and white for a great smokey look. 

One last thing, I thought one item I really didn't need was the eyeliner in Havoc, an aubergine shade. Then I saw this:

From http://solomag.se/killercolours/2011/10/havoc/

Bloody heck it looks nice!

Thank you so much to the lovely people at Illamasqua for the products. I can't wait until I have the money to buy more!

Venomous Cosmetics review

A short while ago I was contacted by Tracy from Venomous cosmetics. She said that she'd seen that some of Venomous' lip poisons are on my wishlist and offered to send me a few of my choice for review. I of course leapt upon the offer greedily but as often happens I couldn't decide what colours to try so asked her to pick some for me. Originally I was supposed to get 4 mini glosses but instead Tracy astounded me with her genorousity by sending me 6 mini glosses, 3 pressed eyeshadow samples and 8 loose eyeshadow samples.   

As I was sent these I can't review how long it takes from shipping to recieving the order, or the actual ordering process but I can say that the communication was great, my enquiries were answered really quickly and there was a slight accident with the email containing my address going missing, even though I was being sent the products free of charge Tracy was extremely apologetic about the delay in shipping. My package arrived a bit after a week after it was sent, which is pretty good from the US!

There's a LOT of photos under the cut :) 

Some High Voltage Cosmetics Lip swatches and Amped Up Gloss Review

About a month ago High Voltage had a little sale where you could get 5 lip products for $20 and as their lip products are some of my favourites in the whole world I had to indulge myself :)

So I got: 

3 lip candies in Neostyle, Orestea and Ultra Violet

A lip whip in She's got the Look
and an Amp'd Up Gloss in Jukebox

 

Since I made my last order the products have all changed appearance. The lip candies used to be in clear pots, now they are black and the lip whips briefly changed into the tubes you can see above but are now back in the squeezy tubes (which personally I prefer). Both the Amped up Gloss and Lip Whip have new labels which look really awesome but have some problems. While personally I don't pay much attention to my makeups ingredients I know it's very important to a lot of people.  Unfortunately the silver writing on black is very hard to read, parts of the list is cut off on the round label and the ink comes off the rectangle label very easily. If this can be sorted out then the new labels would be brilliant, they look really cool and professional. But at the moment the old lip candy labels are better for clarity.

Amp'd Up Gloss lid

  

Lip Whip label

  

Lip Candy label (this is on the bottom of the pots, the tops are plain)

 

The Lip Whip in She's Got The Look is a lovely pale, slightly muted, coral peachy colour.  

  

This is about as close as I come to nude lips and I really like it. It's not bright and brash like most of my lip colours but it's not dull or drab either and I don't feel naked wearing it. I didn't like the new lip gloss style packaging as much as the old squeezy tubes but it was perfectly adequate and it's a moot point now as Jasmine has reverted back to the old packaging :P

Now here are the three Lip Candies.

Orestea. This is a cool slightly blue toned mint green. On the website it looks like a proper turquoise colour and is described as a teal-green but while it's got a hint of blue it's definately a minty green. 

Ultra Violet is a fantastic slightly metallic pale-ish purple (less blue than it looks in my photo)

 

Neostyle is an amazing colour. It's a bright cyan blue with a gorgeous violet shimmer which of course I couldn't capture at all in the photo. 

It was a limited edition colour from a sci-fi future themed collection (the name of which I have forgotten). While it's gorgeous it has a completely different formular from all the other lip candies. It's very... liquidy and thin. It's also sheerer and wears off quicker than the usual lip candies. It's beautifully glossy though!

Here it is after about 2 hours: 

 

The wear certainly isn't bad but it's not as good as the usual lip candies which are just amazing. 

Finally I tried my first Amp'd Up Gloss. This is Juke Box which is probably my perfect purple. The Amp'd Up Gloss formula is good but personally I prefer the lip candies and lip whips. It's a very thick gloss texture and is opaque, which is great! You can apply just a light layer and it's sheerer but still beautifully pigmented. It's also very comfortable, it feels like I'm wearing a nice moisturising lipstick instead of a sticky gloss. However I find that it wears off quite fast. I've seen other reviews which say these last like lipsticks or leave a stain which I didn't find at all, so perhaps I got a dodgy one? Also if I apply it heavilly so it's opaque I can see little gritty bits. I can't feel them at all and they wear off after a while but it looks a bit weird at first. 

Here's a light application: 

 

And here's an opaque application:

 

And here it is after about two hours:  

So, yeah, I think it's a good gloss but I'm not sure if I would buy more because I prefer High Voltages other lip products. If I could get this colour in the Lip Candy formula I would be a very very happy bunny :)

 Well worth my 20 bucks!:D

Brazen Cosmetics Haul, swatches and review

...Finally. God I suck :P

Brazen were on my 'to try' list for a while, and while they did not win my little indie brand poll, I decided to ignore your wishes and order from them first because they had a sale on :P

I ordered:

4 3gram Lip gloss pots in La Femme, Make Out, Pixie and Burlesque

Good glitter gone bad in Naughty Gold

Yummy Gummies lip scrub

The beauty guru sample set

Brazen is available on both Etsy and Artfire, but I found out a special sale through their facebook page (4 3 gram pots for $10 ) so I made my order by just emailing my list of wants to them. There was a little delay because they didn't have the ingredients for something I ordered, but it was only a few days and communication was great, I was kept well informed throughout. Sandi, who I spoke with, was really friendly and very helpful. One of the colours of lipgloss I wanted was sold out (it was the limited edition Blaze, which is now back for a small time) but she suggested La Femme, which is in a similar colour family and she had seen from my wishlist on my blog, the fact that she'd taken the time to look seemed really great to me, it showed she really cared about giving me what I would like best. The package was sent on the 4th of march (I got a shipping confirmation email, which I appreciated) and arrived on the 11th of march which is really quick for a parcel from the US (and yes, this should have been written 2 months ago, I know, I suck).

So here's everything I recieved:

Review and swatches under the cut :)

Swatcharama - Nars Lip Products

 Today I have some swatches of Nars lip products for you! Hope you enjoy!

Also I added a new Barry M lip pencil to this page, I'd lost it until today.

Nars Gloss in Chandernagor.  This is discontinued (I think, it's not on the website) and I'm actually assuming it's just a gloss because it says nowhere on the packaging! It's a bit like a lip stain in that you get these brush strokes of pigment but it is also very thick and pigmented. It's not sticky like a gloss, it's more satin like a stain, but again it doesn't really 'stain' the lips, it puts on a layer of product. Anyway it's a pretty colour :P

Edit: I searched for Chandernagor and it turns out it's a 'lip stain gloss' which must be a whole discontinued range of lip products. I'm smug because it turns out my wittering on about it being half a gloss and half a stain was right! :P

 

A few more under the cut :)

Swatcharama - Evil Shades Lip Gloss

Here are my swatches for Evil Shades 3 sorts of glosses, Wicked gloss, Hardcore Lips and Liquid Sin.

 Hard Core Lips: 

Just Like Candy

 

Swatcharama - Models Own lip Products

Dammit I don't want to like these but I can't help it! They're really, really good and it pisses me off! (for reasons why I don't want to like Models Own see here)

They're all  affordable at £5 each (and often on 3 for 2 at Boots) and they just work. The lipsticks are creamy and truly opaque in one swipe, the lip glosses are pretty pigmented and really glossy and the balms... Oh the balms! I need to write a full review on these products because they really deserve it. Godammit, stop being good, I want to hate you! :(

Anyway here be swatches:

Lipsticks:

Coral Pink:

 

More under the cut :)

Swatcharama - Illamasqua Intense and Sheer Lipglosses

Today I have a tonne of Illamasqua intense lipgloss swatches for you, and 2 of their sheer glosses too.
I've reviewed this properly before here and here so I won't bother saying anymore, just look at the beautiful glosses!

Also I now have nearly every single colour of the Intense glosses. I think there are 2 or possibly 3 nude colours I don't have.... I'm even tempted by them because I love these so much, even though I don't really wear nudes! I wanna catch em all!

Intense glosses

Mistress

Tonnes more under the cut :)

Swatcharama - Barry M Lip Gloss swatches

 Here is the last lot of my Barry M lip swatches, today it's the lip gloss wands and glossy tubes :)

Firstly the wands. These retail at £4.49 and come in a hard plastic tube very similar to a Mac dazzleglass. The opacity changes according to the colour. I don't find these sticky at all, they're sort of silky feeling. They're not particularly long-lasting but don't disappear immediately.

No 5 - Bubblegum Pink

 

Slightly disappointed with this one to tell you the truth, it's a lot brighter in the tube than on the lips and not completely opaque. Still pretty though. Smells like bubblegum, but not too noticable once it's on the lips.

 More below the cut :)

Topshop makeup - my haul and thoughts

Topshop's makeup brand launched just over a month ago to much fanfare from the press and bloggers alike. Personally i had some high hopes from the brand as Topshop always seems to aspire to high fashion with a (slightly higher than usual) high street price tag so i thought maybe they would take some risks with their makeup line. I was a little disappointed when i first saw pictures from the launch because there were no real bright, exciting colours or innovative seeming products, but i did see some nice looking things so i  headed off to Oxford Street to see for myself.

I must say that my first impressions of the brand have been very favourable! I think the prices are fair (highest being £10 and the lowest £4 meaning they're slightly over drugstore prices but not as pricey as mid-end brands like Mac) and they have a nice selection of products. I like the fact that there will be a limited edition collection 4 times a year, it means that there will be exciting new products to see, but you'll have a whole 3 months to make up your mind and purchase. Everything I tried seemed to be of very high quality and, while the colour range might not be as exciting as, for instance, Illamasqua, but they're not dull either. There's lots of bright, fun eye colours and lots of highly pigmented red, pink and coral lip colours, not just lots of nudes and neutrals.

Personally i love the packaging. I think it's fun but classy, love the stripes and spots and like the fact it's made of metal, it's unusual. I also love that some products come in black boxes with illustrations of the product inside. 

Anyway here are my thoughts on the range.

The main range, so far, has nail varnishes, eye shadows, crayons, liners and mascaras, sheer foundations, highlighters and a concealer, cream blushes, lipsticks, crayons, 3 different kinds of glosses and balms.

The SS10 Range consists of false eyelashes, glitters, a lip and cheek stain, a big, golden pressed powder (possibly baked?) highlighter (seems to be sold out on the website), 3 trios of baked eyeshadows, 4 shimmery nail polishes, 2 pencil eyeliners and 2 soft metallic crayons for all over the face.

The packaging is similar to the main range but with gold and silver added to the otherwise monochrome packaging. Some have golden stars on the boxes and the crayons come in very luxe golden tube-things.

I tried the lightest foundation (Skin Tint in Fair) and it was too dark and too yellow for me but seemed to be a lovely consistency, feeling more like a moisturiser on my hand (where i swatched it) than a foundation. The colour range of the foundations isn't great with only 4 colours, however it does at least go up to a dark colour which looks like it would be suitable for lighter black skintones as does the highlighting liquid. I tried the eye crayon in Black Jack, which is a black with silver glitter, the pigmentation was great but I found the formula a little odd, to me it felt like i was rubbing charcoal on my skin, it certainly wasn't creamy like eyeshadow pencils often are. There are 3 different types of lip gloss, Glosses, Glazes and Polishes. The Glosses come in a squeezy tube similar to a Lancome juicy tube and are the most highly pigmented (apart from the clear one obviously), coming up quite similar to Illamasqua Intense Lip Glosses (which, in my opinion is wonderful!), they are very shiny. The Glazes come in a stiff plastic tube with a wand and are sheerer and slightly pearlised and the polishes come in a small pot (the lip balms also come in this packaging) and are quite pigmented, 'stiffer' not runny like the other 2 types of gloss and shimmery. 

From the SS10 range i only swatched the eyeliners and crayons. I didn't buy anything but having thought about it for a while i am definately going to get all of them (and possibly some of the nail varnishes). The eyeliner pencils were just beautiful, coming in stunning metallic pink and blue colours with hints of silver, the applied smoothly to my skin. And the crayons, well when i first applied them i thought i didn't need them because i have the Illamasqua liquid metals. The colours and consistency when first applied are very similar, but the crayons were slightly thicker. However after i got home from my day of shopping i realised that while all of my hand swatches had either disappeared entirely or faded into one big stain on my hand, the gold and silver crayons had stayed absolutely perfect. Even when i watched my hand they stayed strong. And so i need them, particularly for my eyes as i imagine they wouldn't crease as much as their Illamasqua counterparts.

And now onto what i actually bought!

 

Neon Rose - a vey bright but light orangey coral and Crushed Berry - a true berry colour

I LOVE these. They are a cream-to-powder formula and are beautifully pigmented and... just lovely! I like to apply them with my fingers, but they do dry quite quickly so sometimes they can be a little hard to blend.

 

 

Rio Rio - an orange toned red and Brighton Rock - a slightly corally pink

These are beautifully pigmented and have a great matte finish. They are slightly drying but nothing terrible.

  

Rosa - a bright fuschia pink and Pulp - a shimmery true purple gloss

I haven't worn the Rosa Lip Stick pencil yet but it applied wonderfully to my hand and felt soft and was slightly glossy and really brightly pigmented. The Pulp lip gloss is nicely pigmented, but not quite the colour it looks in the tube. Also it's a tiny bit shimmery with a slight blue sheen.

 

Gypsey Night - a stunning black with holographic glitter and coppery flakies.

I also got the Matte topcoat, but forgot to photo it.

The formulas of both seem fine, nothing amazing but certainly not bad at all. They dry quite quickly and were nice and not at all thick or gloopy to apply.

Swatches:

 

From left to right:

Neon rose applied sheerly, Neon rose applied thickly, Crushed Berry applied thickly, Crushed Berry applied sheerly, Rosa, Brighton Rock, Rio Rio

 

Pulp

 

Gypsey Night (craply applied and with a top coat that caused shrinkage, the polish itself applied very well)

There will be proper reviews of everything when i've used it properly. But so far i really like everything i bought. 

Hope you found this interesting! You can buy Topshop makeup from the website (available to the US too and possibly elsewhere, not sure) and selected topshop stores across the UK.

Illamasqua Week - Sheer Lipgloss Review

 In a lot of ways these sheer lipglosses are very like the Intense Lipglosses, they come in the exact sme packaging, have the same scent and seem to have the same, or at least a very similar, formula. The difference, as maybe you can guess from the name, is that these lipglosses are sheer instead of opaque. Also there are fewer 'odd' colours as i guess a colour like green or blue wouldn't show well when it's sheer and just turn your lips a funny colour. But you can get some lovely shades of red, pinks, purples, peaches and nudes.  Again these are £12.50 for 7ml .

I only own one of these, Explode, but Claire has one too, Divine. I've only tried it on to take a photo, so i asked her to write a little bit about what it's like to wear properly and here's what she had to say:

'This was a gift to me from Lillian :) We were shopping around at the Illamasqua counter and she overheard me admiring it's Calpol-pink colour. When my back was turned she bought it on the sly to give to me later! Aww.

Divine goes on very smoothly, it's not thick or gloopy, nor does it feel tacky or unpleasant on my lips. I don't  wear a lot of lip products, so I'm usually very concious of the texture, and if something is too sticky or too drying, I can't tolerate it very well and want to scrub it off, and this is especially true of a lot of lipglosses I've tried. But i can put on Divine and forget i'm wearing it because the texture is so nice. Divine also doesn't seem as sticky as most of the ones I have, and I was especially impressed when on a windy day my hair smacked me in the face, and when I went to brush it away, it didn't stick to my lips in the same horrible way as other lipglosses do (for instance Pink Poodle by Mac is a similar colour but i find it a lot more sticky).


Because it's not thick, it's hard to build up the colour, but for a sheer lipgloss, you do get quite a lot of pigment onto your lips without much work. It's also quite long lasting for a gloss, it will vanish within about an hour without touching it up, but in my experience with glosses, this is pretty good, and I find it quite easy to apply considering it doesn't have a wand. I find the tip is a nice shape for pushing the gloss around on my lips, though maybe because it's sheer, I can get away with being a bit sloppy applying it, so it's easy for me to just pop it in my bag and carry it around if I want to wear it all day.'

Thanks Claire! Kiss kiss.

My findings when wearing Explode and briefly Divine are pretty much the same as hers. For something specifically called a 'sheer' gloss these are really quite pigmented, around the same as the average gloss you can buy. I guess calling it 'sheer' is to show to differentiate them from the opaque Intense lipglosses, not because they are super sheer themselves. They still impart a good amount of colour on your lips, but it is translucent instead of opaque.

To me they feel the same as the Intense glosses, even though the Intense ones must pack a lot more pigment. And, while they do wear off quicker than the opaque colours they still stick around for about an hour or 2 before you really need to reapply, which personally i find quite good for a gloss (don't know if it's just me but most glosses tend to last just a few minutes on my lips before they just disappear or feather away). As they are sheer hey are easier to apply and less high-maintenance than the opaque ones.

So finally here are the lip swatches of the two i have access to.

 

Explode - a lovely milky colour which shows mainly pink reflects but also some gold and a little blue. As you can see it covers the natural colour of my lips quite well.

 

Divine - Pretty clear bright pink.

So would i purchase again? Well i'm not as in love with these as i am the opaque ones simply because i love opaque lip products a lot more than sheer. However there are a few colours i really like and am interested in buying (the purples are lovels and some of the pinks are very pretty) . Another great thing about these is that you can layer them over lipsticks or liners to change the colour. Explode is really lovely over other colours as it makes the colour have a milky-pinky sheen but the original colour still shines through. I think for other people who are used to wearing sheer glosses or lipsticks these would be great though, their staying power, formula and colour range make them still really worth the money. I really like them a lot, just not as much as the Intense Glosses, which as you may know are one of my favourite ever lip products.

Illamasqua Week - Intense Lip Gloss Review

Illamasqua's Intense Lip Glosses are one of my favourite lip products ever, and are certainly the best lip glosses i've ever tried. They are unlike any other lip gloss i've tried in quality, longetivity, colour selection and pigmentation. I have a whole bunch of them now but i'm still not satisfied, i want every colour available! And then i want them to release some more!

The colours you can get just amaze me. White, grey, black, blue, green, purple, orange, silver and many more slightly less scary sounding colours like reds, pinks, nudes and browns. And all are completely opaque. Many a time i've seen a blue or green gloss and got excited only to discover they are so sheer that they aren't meant to impart any colour at all, just create the optical illusion of white teeth, or a red gloss that is opaque in the tube but sheer on the lips. With these glosses that absolutely isn't the case, they are thick and the colour you see in the tube is the colour you will get on your lips.

The formula is superb too, they don't feel like any other gloss i've tried, they're thick and a bit like a paint. It's really hard to explain it but they are sticky but not in the same way as other glosses i've tried. They're sticky because they stick on your lips, not because they stick your lips together. They're sort of 'waxy' but they really don't feel bad. Once they're on my lips i don't really notice them at all. They're also pretty transfer resistant, if you touch something with your lips a small amount will transfer, but it's such a small amount it doesn't often show. They last for hours on their own, or even longer over a lip pencil, definately the longest lasting lip gloss i've ever tried, generally on me a gloss will just disappear off my lips within about an hour. When they do begin to fade you're left with a stain of the colour. They smell like a sweet, fruity sherbet and taste very faintly of it too.

You can sheer them out easily by just using a tiny amount of the product and spreading it over the lips, or you can apply it thickly to get the colour in the tube. As well as being as opaque as a lipstick these are true 'glosses', they give a really great high shine.

The packaging isn't particularly exciting, a clear tube with a black lid and black text and comes in the classic Illamasqua black box with cream writing. While it's not super exciting it is very classy looking and as the colours of the gloss are so bright it could have been overkill if the packaging was very bright or strange looking. There is an angled applicator where the product comes out, but i always use a lip brush to apply these so i can't tell you have effective it is. I have one problem with the packaging though, the sticker on the back is the same for all colours but then has the name of the shade printed on top, and for some reason these names always rub off really easily. So it can be difficult to remember which colour is which, especially with similar colours.

You get 7ml of product in a tube for £12.50. This might not sound like much, but you only need a small bead of gloss to cover your lips, so it will last you a long, long time.

There are a few drawbacks with these though, they are pretty high-maintenance, they tend to feather on me (but then again EVERYTHING feathers on me) and even if i do the finger-in-the-mouth trick i often still end up with gloss on my teeth, and as it's so richly pigmented it shows as badly as a lipstick.

But i love, love, love these so much and as you can see i've got a really large collection, but i still want more! I would absolutely recommend these to anyone who loves bright coloured lips or glosses and wants to try something new.

I have lip swatches of all the colours i own Here

Now there are only a few left i want need to get!

Mini Review - Nivea Caregloss and Shine

I won this in a giveaway by the lovely Cat (catslittleobsessions.blogspot.com).
First impressions on this are really great! It smells and tastes delicious (sort of berryish and slightly sherbety) and is a really nice shiny pink with a slight shimmer. The idea of this is really attractive to me, quite a well pigmented lip gloss but with the softening and healing effects of a lip balm. It glides on easily and feels nice on my lips, buttery and not at all sticky.
However after about 30 seconds this stuff starts to tingle on my lips, and the tingle turns into a sting. After about a minute it starts prickling me intensely, it doesn't really hurt but it's very irritating and i can't cope with it and have to rub it off. It's a bit like a lip plumper, only it continues to sting for as long as i have it on my lips. I don't know if it's just me that has a problem with this (i am allergic to some spices and similar things so it might contain something that irritates me).
So if anyone else has tried it please let me know how it felt to you.

Illamasqua Intense Lipgloss swatches

I love, love, LOVE these. I am basically trying to catch them all ala Pokemon. I'll probably do a longer review of them when i can, but here's a super quick one.
These are just amazing colours, and the most opaque lipglosses i have ever tried. They're a bit sticky, but not overly so in my opinion, they make my lips feel a bit silky. They stay on longer than any other gloss i've tried, but still wear off much quicker than a lipstick, to make them last longer you can layer them over a matching lip pencil. The smell absolutely amazing, like a fruity sherbet. You can sheer them out easily if you want. Perfect glosses in my opinion.

Mistress


Torrid


Temper


Move


Indulge


Gender


Galactic


Fury


Follow


Fierce


Besotted


Petulant


And to give you an idea of what they looked like sheered out, here is petulant applied very thinly.


Fume

 

Perform

Frenzy